Use Delays to Stop Overcorrecting
Account for feedback delays before judging whether a system intervention is working.
Look for structure before blame. Two weeks after changing sales territories, Omar sees pipeline coverage dip from 3.1x to 2.6x and wants to redraw the territories again by Monday. Teach Delays are one of the main reasons well-intended systems oscillate. A team acts, the system takes time to respond, and leaders interpret the delay as failure. They add another correction before the first one has landed. The second correction interacts with the delayed effect of the first, and the system swings. Meadows places delays on the leverage-point list because delay length, relative to the rate of change, shapes whether feedback…
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